Little Women Show Blog

Congrats to Sutton!!!

Hi All-

Congratulations goes out to SUTTON FOSTER for winning TWO categories in the Broadway.com Audience Awards!!!

Sutton won both the "FAVORITE LEADING ACTRESS IN A BROADWAY MUSICAL"  and "FAVORITE DIVA PERFORMANCE"!!!

WAY TO GO, SUTTON!!!

And WAY TO GO, LITTLE WOMEN FANS!!! It was your voting that made all the difference!!! It's so great that you honored the show and Sutton's performance by voting for her! Thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

If you want to see all the results, go to http://www.broadway.com/Gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=512905

BLOGGER TOM

Celebrating Blogging on Closing Night

So before we knew the show was closing we invited several bloggers to the show. It turned out this was the last Broadway performance too.

Mary caputred the closing scene on stage highlighting the Electrician who is going to retire next month.

Sanford's Review

Leveraging the connections within the blogging community - and applying some of the old media techniques (comp tickets to the show), a number of female bloggers - Liza Sabater of Culture Kitchen, Mary Hodder of Napsterization, Betsy Devine of Funny Haha, Esme Vos of MuniWireless, Elayne Riggs of Pen-Elayne on the Web, Laurie from The Unofficial Apple Weblog and Suzy Conn of Blogway Baby. The goal - to have female bloggers discuss the show and begin some positive word-of-mouth on the upcoming road tour.

Betsy Divine's Post

Just got home from New York City and the big blogging party after the final Broadway performance of "Little Women." I Flickr-ed the whole thing--so did Mary Hodder

I love Mary's photo of me with Sanford Dickert, so Manhattan including the neon "Celebrity" meme behind us....true for Sanford at least, he was John Kerry's blogging CTO...

Darn, my hair is so flyaway! But let's pretend it's somehow because of the gallons of tears I cried during all the play's sad parts (and some of its very happy parts.)

"Blogway Baby" Suzy Conn

Thanks to Kaliya for setting this up--keep watching for their blog for news of the national tour.
Pen-Elayne Riggs has more notes and photos, as well as the best blogpost title: "Praising the electrician or someone like him."

Little Women On The Blogging Edge!

I had the great pleasure of being invited to and attending a special blogger meeting in New York on Sunday. One of the producers of Little Women, Scott Freiman, and Kaliya Hamlin, a blogger who worked on setting up the Little Womencast blog(see myprevious post invited a group of female and theater bloggers to come and see a matinee of >Little Womenand then have a dinner after. Unlike Blogway Baby, most of the blogs represented were not theater-specific blogs.

Praising The Electrician, Or Someone Like Him

On Sunday I was honored to be among a dozen or so bloggers invited to attend what turned out to be the final performance of the Broadway musical Little Women, starring Sutton Foster (Jo) and Maureen McGovern (Marmee). The news that the show's cancellation had come as quite a surprise to the cast and many producers earlier in the week, so I found this performance to have something of a double meaning, particularly in the second act as the March family tries to cope with the loss of Beth. (I'm sorry, I'm not going to label Beth's death a spoiler; if you have any interest at all in the book or the myriad movies made from it then you already know, and if you didn't know you probably have little desire to peruse this classic anyway.)

From what I could tell squeezed into my seat (the Virginia Theatre is a wee bit unforgiving to large folk) up in nosebleed territory (mezzanine row J, two long flights up), the audience was probably about 90% female, which didn't surprise me at all. Everyone wept as expected in the right places, and the performances were poignant and enthusiastic, even if the adapted material didn't always live up to the actors' talents. Besides Foster, the real standout for me was Danny Gurwin, who played Laurie, and the times the two of them were on stage together were delightful. Best of all, it retained what the point of Little Women had always been for me - the idea of pursuing your dreams, and keeping memories alive, through writing.

One of my favorite bits came at the end, where the cast took their final bows and then Foster, after thanking all their audiences and the folks behind the scenes at the theatre, brought out head electrician Gregory Cap, whose last show this was after a 46-year career in the industry. You don't often see crew members honored like that, and I thought it was a wonderful touch. What a great note to go out on.

After the show, cast recording CDs in hand, we hiked the eight blocks downtown to dinner at Angus McIndoe (right around where you took the Spamalot picture, Cat) and had a chance to chat. I am not exaggerating when I say I was tremendously outclassed by everyone else at dinner. Here are my pictures:

Getting CLOSER!!!

Hi friends!

We're in the TOP FOUR in almost every category we are in on BroadwayWorld.com!!! Thanks for your help!!! Right now, we are still lagging in BEST CHOREOGRAPHY- Michael Lichtefeld is 6th, and in the FEATURED ACTOR IN A MUSICAL category- our highest ranker is DANNY GURWIN, in 5th place!

Did YOU vote yet? Your vote now can help CATHY ZUBER move from 4th place to 3rd! Wouldn't that be lovely?

We are only in 5th place for BEST MUSICAL, but as you vote for our other categories, you can place a mark for us there, too!

THANKS FOR HELPING US GET THIS FAR!!! YOU ARE THE BEST!!!

(I know I'd vote for YOU if there was a "BEST SUPPORTER" category!)

BLOGGER TOM

ps If you haven't voted yet, click on this link: http://broadwayworld.com/vote.cfm

SUTTON FOSTER is #1!!!

Hi all!

These things change by the minute, but our own Jo March just assumed the top spot on the BroadwayWorld.com annual contest! See for yourself:

http://broadwayworld.com/vote.cfm

Did YOU vote for Sutton and our team? It's not too late to vote!!! MAUREEN now needs your assistance to get to the top of her category!!! Get to work!

BLOGGER TOM

KEEP ON VOTING!!!

Hi kids-

BLOGGER TOM here-

With all the hoopla on B'way.com and B'wayWorld.com  and their Tony contests, it's easy to overlook that PLAYBILL has a Tony poll, too! If you're looking to help us honor the memory of LITTLE WOMEN, please go vote for Sutton on their site!

Go to http://www.playbill.com/visapoll/

In all these polls and contests, it easy to see that a category can be decided by just a handful of votes. Help LITTLE WOMEN go out with a bang! We have appreciated your support and look forward to having you see us on the road!

BLOGGER TOM

You heard right.

Hi All-

As some of you have already written in to ask, here's the sad news-

LITTLE WOMEN will play it's last performance in New York on Sunday, May 22nd at 2 pm

There's more I could say, and probably will soon, but I just wanted to let you, our faithful friends hear something from us before the day ended.

Thank you all for so much support and love you've offered us over the past year.

BLOGGER TOM

p.s. The Website is NOT disappearing, and will most likely morph into the site for the National Tour. Stay tuned!

Cast - Janet Carroll Interview

Andrew giving the heads-up to y'all that Janet Carroll, Little Women's own Aunt March/Mrs. Kirk, is right now working on a tell-all that chronicles how she came to the show and shares how she brings her characters to life eight times a week in the show.

I've already perfomed several times with Janet and, take it from me, she is the real deal.  You have GOT to check back here to read what she's got to say.

Varela out-

Little Women CD signing photos

Link over to BroadwayWorld to see a range of photo's from the DC signing.

Talkinbroadway.com review

Check out the CD review on talkinbroadway.com.

Broadway.com Voting NEW INFO

If you don't venture onto the theater website you may not know that Broadway.com has changed it's method of selecting the nominees for their annual awards- This year it's by popular vote from it's readers!

Sunday Signing with the Cast

Last Sunday's cast recording signing at the Virginia Theater lobby was a great success. 600 people arrived to have their recordings signed by the cast and take photos with the fans. Among those in attendance were Kathy Lee Gifford and her daughter Cassidy.

Check out the Production Diary to see pictures and read more about it

Cast Recording Signing

Will you be in the city on Mother's Day?

If so, stop by Little Women- the musical at the Virginia Theater (245 West 52nd Street, between Broadway and 8th Ave) at 4:45pm and have your cast recording signed by the stars of the show.

Don't have your copy yet? That's ok, you can pick one up at the theater.

Join us for all the fun.

Date: May 7 (Mother's Day)
Place: Virginia Theater Lobby
Time: 4:45pm

Road Rebel Ren

Lets hear it for the cast recording!

Its official, the Little Women - the Musical cast CD has reached #2 on Amazon.com. It is so popular that they (A.c) have ordered 1100 more copies to meet the demand. Tower Records has ordered 1000 more copies also, this means that Little Women- the Musical is moving as many cast recordings as Spamalot, and doing it without the promotional support. Whoo Hoo!!

Also, I hear that talkinbroadway.com gave the CD a great review. Check back for a link to that review.

Road Rebel Ren

Cast - "Beautiful" Music

Andrew here - Did you know that Little Women has the only orchestra on Broadway that is all acoustic?  Yup, not a single bit of electricity befouling our musical instruments.  I asked Jason Howland (composer and all around great guy, looks like James Marsden ((Cyclops from X-Men movies))) why he chose that and he said that it had been his vision from the beginning to write a musical that could be played they way they used to be played.  As someone who has listened to the score many a time, the purity of that vision comes across beautifully.

Speaking of beautiful, Bob Stattel (Mr. Laurence) said the thing that struck him most about the whole CD recording experience was how beautiful it was to see the orchestra again.  You know, since the show began, the orchestra and the cast don't get to see each other much.  The cast shows up at half-hour (or before) and goes upstairs, while the orchestra shows up (anytime before the start of the show((!))) and goes into the pit beneath the stage (no Golem images please). 

If you've never SEEN an orchestra play, then you're missing a beautiful sight.  Andrew Wilder (conductor) gets up there and as soon as he starts waving his arms the orchestra becomes a single organism, moving with each pulse of the music, its really a sight to behold.  You might even see our percussionist, Jim, over on the left, running around like a crazy person, playing the timps, marimba, glockenschpiel, chimes, bells, triangles, snares, and probably the kitchen sink.  I call him Vishnu, the Hindu god who has all the extra arms, because he could use another pair of arms for all the cues he has.

Varela out-

Little Women Celebrates Blogging in May

Little Women the Musical brings alive the timeless American classic by Louisa May Alcott.  Semi-autobigraophical in nature it has inspired generations of people and women in particular to follow their dreams, creative passions and the writing life. 

Two months after the show launched in keeping with these themes Little Women's producers took a bold leap in to the emerging blogosphere and launched the first official show and cast blog on Broadway.   To celebrate this new writing format and medium for self experssion, the producers are hosting a special event inviting 10 leading  women bloggers and and 10 broadway bloggers see the show together and discuss it afterwards.

Cast - Making the CD

Andrew here - We're coming up on a wave of events that have to do with the release of the Little Women Original Cast Recording and I thought it might be interesting to the shows fans to learn about how the recording was made.   I went around the theater and pestered the cast to tell me their experiences so big thanks go out to Sutton, Maureen, Jim, John, Bob, Danny, Amy, Jenny, Megan, and Janet.

The recording process, to put it diplomatically, requires meticulousness.  Knowing that this particular recording is going to stand forever as the definitive example of "Little Women the Musical" means that you work and work "until it is right".  A great sense of humor is an absolute must if you're doing anything in the studio as, invariably, you will be asked to sing your most difficult passages "just one more time".  I happen to really like studio singing because you do get to get it right.  Also, there's ususally no shortage of food.

The day began at 10 AM with the orchestra laying down the overture and entre act, the cast joined the fun at noon.  With the day scheduled to go until 10PM, its was important for the actors to pace themselves and make sure they don't oversing themselves into hoarseness.  Luckily for us, our voices are some of the best and strongest you're going to hear on Bway (and that's no idle boast) so we brought stamina in buckets.

You get up off the sofa in the green room (anyone want to know what that is?) go into the studio, put on your headphones (like listening to yourself whispering in your own ears) and wait for the engineer to tell you what you're singing.  You might hear, "Let's take it from the top" or they might tell you to start somewhere in the middle.  The good thing is that in any take of a given song, you might blow the doors off of Section A, but you might forget a word in Section B.  So, you'll go back and start at Section B and get another run at it.  Using special software, the engineer can bond the good Section A to your best Section B and voila!  Its the perfect you!

So pick up your copy of the CD and (props to a certain chef) kick it up a notch  by getting it signed at the theater by the cast on Saturday, May 7 from 4:45 to 5:15.  SWEET!

Lessons Learned from Literature

Occasionally, as I traverse the wide expanse that is the World Wide Web, I come across beautiful piece of writing that I am compelled to share. This lovely piece of prose is from "Catawampus" Please read on...

I've been reading Neve "Little Women" at bedtime lately, from my very treasured 1947, unabridged edition - the one identical to the one my great-grandmother gave me when I was Neve's age, which I lost many years ago before I moved from Oklahoma. I recently replaced it (thanks be to EBay), and just holding it and reading from it and seeing the words printed in that old, familiar typeface, and the beautiful illustrations, warms the cockles of my sentimental heart.

GET OUT THE VOTE! - ON BROADWAY.COM

Its that time of year again. Awards season is well upon us and if you have been reading my posts lately you will see that Little Women- the musical has received several nominations from the most venerable awarding institutions that the theater knows. And I' m sure we all our hope that in the weeks to come there will be more lovely noms and accolades.

Personally, I have a love hate relationship with this time of year...